Bunions and all!

“The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Unknown

Still find it difficult to ‘mail’, sitting in a cyber-café trying to shut-out the noises! Nothing like putting pen to paper – a hardcopy – something that I can hold in my hands and savour; allowing a slow release of images, trying to process the experiences, letting the mind go for a walk. Being able to reach for the pages without hesitation and scrolling. Somehow, I have never really enjoyed sending long electronically sterile mail!

*

Have just returned from Binsar to ‘civilization’ and as usual finding it tough.

What is it that makes me spend months there? Work? Yes…but there is something else too. Binsar is where I would like to die. Just the place – leaning against a huge Pine tree dripping dollops of moss from its branches; the Nose, inhaling fantastic fragrance of fresh/decaying vegetation mingled with Rhododendron, fern and traces of wood smoke from somewhere, filtering through moist foliage; the Ears, sucking in whisper of falling leaves, bird calls, the short-sharp warning cough of a leopard in the distance, sound of time passing in nature; and the Eyes – Glorious vision of the 300-odd kilometre panorama of the Himalayas and its peaks along the northern horizon……Kedarnath, Chaukhamba, Trisul, Nandaghunti, Nanda Devi, Nandakot and Panchuli!

*

Actually, I don’t miss TV, mobile, the net and the rest of the perks of the modern world.

I think I am not one who enjoys large doses of humanity at a stretch where the meeting of minds is rare. Wonder what it says about me? Jim-jams of the top order.

These days there is a Coppersmith Barbet visiting and planning a nest. I sit and freeze-frames of the mind. It’s amazing how the bird tuk-tuks for hours, flies off somewhere to tuk-tuk and returns to work on chipping out a hole and quickly feed on the grubs that come out of the dry branch. Aerial apartments being made ready.

Then, there are the Sunbirds. The male in its shinning purplish-blue glory and the dull can’t-see-me colours of the female, weaving an incredible residence around a string that I hung from the clothes-line.

How do they do it? What are these genetic codes that they carry? Are the babies born with it or the weaving patterns are triggered only during the mating season?

*

The Indian Autumn is magical. As it gets warmer, everything in nature seems to be in a mode of regeneration – no flux but an intimate process of celebrating the circle of Life. The trees shed leaves with such grace; allowing themselves to become naked as what was once their ‘cover’ does a ballet terminating on the ground being ‘covered’ now. Like a Zen moment the surface shifts and if you stay transfixed long enough, you will notice that most leaves fall in different dance moves but land on one particular side. Then, the flow changes and the dried twigs, leaves and flowers create another pattern that ebbs, throbs and balloons with the breeze.

Look up, and find the trees exhibiting their existence in a matter-of-fact way – cracks, splits, bunions and all – tapering away to embrace everything and thumbing their ‘noses’, at the wind.

Look away, take a nap, and wake-up to find that the bunion has given birth to a most spectacular wee bit of green, the shade/colour of which cannot be reproduced on any canvas, by man.

How does a flower that blooms white, change into a deep blue after two days and then go away – where?

In the midst of all this that I see and miss – where do I fit and for what?